Jayne shall eat now in Alwinton, England

Advice for Women Motorcycle Travelers:
FOOTWEAR

When you fly, luggage space is at a premium. But when you travel by motorcycle, space can be even more precious - you can't pay some outrageous fee to take another bag; you have an absolutely limited amount of space, period. And what shoes to pack on a motorcycle trip is something I have frequently struggled with. I'm not sure the struggle is over.

Which shoes to take for a motorcycle trip depends on a lot of things:

What you will be doing while traveling (how much walking will you do? what will the terrain be like? will you be doing any hard core hiking?)
What will the weather be like where you are going? (which, if you are doing a RTW trip, means planning for every scenario)
Will you be camping, or staying in hotels?
How conscious are you of your shoes, in terms of what other people see in you/think of you?

When I have traveled by motorcycle, I've been camping some or all of the time, and a LOT of walking is always a part of the trip: we sometimes go to a spot and camp there for a couple of days, taking day trips and doing a lot of hiking or sight-seeing by walking. And on some trips, we've done some very serious hikes, like exploring a ghost town or touring some vast, ancient Mayan site. That's dictated what I need in terms of shoes.

My shoe choices:

For many years, I wore hiking boots, rather than motorcycle boots, when I rode my bike. The boots covered my ankles, and that is what everyone recommends. I changed to a pair of Irish Setter work boots in 2012, and they not only came up high over my ankles, they also had steel toes. They worked REALLY well for MANY years - they were comfortable enough to hike in for a couple of miles and gave me more protection than hiking boots. My Irish Setter work boots were tougher than most lace up motorcycle boot I've handled in a store. The space I saved in my panniers by not having to pack what I was going to hike in was so awesome, making room instead for extra clothes or for something I bought during a trip.

In 2025, since I was riding more and more offroad, I decided to try, again, to find motorcycle boots that fit me and that I could also hike in. I found boots I thought might work. It doesn't matter what brand - what matters is what works for YOU. But I knew almost immediately that they weren't goign to work for hiking too and I would now have to take extra shoes with me if I'm going to hike. In fact, for Belize and Guatemala, where I rode smaller bikes than my own, I rode in my hiking boots, because there was no way to have space enough for both hiking boots and riding boots, even if I wore one on the plane ride to the country.

There was another big downside for me to switching to motorcycle boots that fit well over the ankle and up to the lower calf: I injured my left knee just by getting on and off motorcycles repeatedly during our first trip with them in 2025. Proper motorcycle boots don't allow your ankles to turn, and so, when I got on a bike and put my right leg on or over the seat, all that twisting came at the knee. After spending more than nine months healing, I've had to change how I get and off a motorcycle and, sadly, my knee has not fully recovered and may never do so.

It's still too early for me to say if I regret the riding boots... I think my situation may be unique among most motorcycle riders, in terms of comfort in walking in motorcycle boots and having to be so careful not to injure myself while wearing them just getting on and off a motorcycle.

I always pack Teva sandals on a motorcycle camping trip. I can hike even three miles in these, as long as the terrain isn't too crazy. They are also great for wearing down to breakfast in a hotel or for around the camp site, or when I'm just DONE with wearing motorcycle boots for the day. They are also good for wearing in the middle of the night when you have to walk across the floor of a hotel room where you don't want to see what's crawling across the floor (as happens in a fair number of developing countries). Even in cold weather, as long as its dry, a thick pair of hiking socks make these wearable even outside (at least for me - but I have a pretty high tolerance for cold). I even wear them when I swim in a lake (I hate muddy lake bottoms). Only downside: you have to be careful how you pack these, because too much stress on anything plastic, like a plastic buckle, will break that piece of plastic, and it often is something that cannot be repaired (both mine and my husbands' pair broke this way; luckily, we had bought them at REI back when they did great refunds - now, we refuse to buy any sandals with hard plastic anywhere on the shoe). Pro tip: pack them in a plastic bag within your suit case or pannier.

Another thing I love about Tevas is they look good with my camping dresses (yes, there are such things).

I know that, instead of Tevas, or flip flops, a lot of travelers swear by Crocs, or croc-like plastic slip on shoes. You do you.

I think cheap plastic flip flops can be worth the space in your luggage. They are great for a sketchy shower floor at a camp site or in a hotel room, or for walking around a hotel room, especially if you aren't going to bring Tevas or some other walk-about shoe (which I think is a mistake not to do). Get cheap but durable flip flops that are good in the water, will prevent slipping in the shower, and fold at least a bit (or won't break if bent a bit). The thinner, the better. When I take such flip flops, I do not EVER wear them outside of the bathroom at a campsite, or outside a hotel room: I don't want them to get any dirt on them, so that they are always be clean for a shower. And I always pack them in a plastic bag within my luggage.

Remember: you can almost always buy cheap flipflops anywhere, even a remote roadside shop in the middle of Africa.

My sock choices:

Take a mix of hiking socks and light-weight socks. I have both winter hiking socks and summer hiking socks, and the weather forecasts determines which I take. I like hiking socks because they provide more support for walking - something I do a lot of during motorcycle trips. I also take some hiking "footies" to wear with the Tevas, or those super-light-weight airplane socks.